Category Archives: faith

The Terrifying Chair

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photo-5 copy 2What lengths would you go to in order to hear the voice of God?

Assuming first that this word spoken, this whisper is actually the most important thing in the world—more important than our frenetic activity…

… more important than our church involvement

… more important than our spiritual gifts,

… more important than our agendas…

After all, Jesus heard this word spoken to him prior to anything he did. At his baptism, before his public ministry began, Jesus heard the words that I believe we are all ultimately longing to hear:

 “You are my Son, whom I dearly love; in you I find happiness.” (Mark 1:11 CEB)

In order to hear that, I’d like to believe that most of us would say, “Well, I’ll do anything!”

And so that’s what we do. We sign on for the latest book, the latest bible study, the newest church, the best set of spiritual friends we can.

But lately I’ve been disturbed by something else.

In order to hear the voice of God, would you be willing to sit in a chair and do nothing for 6 hours? 

4 hours?

1 hour?

10 minutes?

Because most of the time that slowing down, that resting, that ceasing is what we need to do in order to hear that voice, that word, that whisper.

And most of us don’t want to go there; I know I hesitate.

Truth is, I hesitate because before I hear God’s voice, I know I’m going to hear a lot of other voices that aren’t nearly as pleasant….

… And they aren’t the least bit interested in calling me dearly loved. 

What I have found is that all my ministry activities and running and laughing and meetings and small groups and “churching” and serving and traveling and worship orders and presentations and writing(!) and one-on-ones and lunches and phone calls and coffee and committee meetings…

… are actually keeping these other, nastier voices at bay.

And at the first sign of me slowing down, they come roaring in.

This is terrifying, and I am tempted to start running again.

But one of the promises of faith that I am struggling to hold on to is the thought that God wants to speak—indeed already is speaking—this first word of belovedness to me and to you. 

I just have to hear it. I just have to hear it, and sometimes that means fighting through all these other voices, these shouts of death and destruction, in order to get to God’s voice. These other voices lie and tell me that they are my “first words”, but they’re not.

God has the first word in my life, and in yours…

And that first word is “In you I find happiness.” 

The invitation is…

  • slow down
  • fight through the voices
  • embrace the first word in your life

peace

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Weapons of Mass Production, cont. :: Leadership Tools

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Leadership Tools

Without a watch I can tell you—within about 3 minutes or so—when 1 hour has elapsed.

No really, I can.

I can do this little parlor trick because over the past 15 years of my life I have had to learn how to use 60 minutes of time in the most effective way possible.

I have learned this because, as a Pastor and a leader, one of the most valuable tools I have in my little bag of rusty tools is the one-on-one meeting with volunteers, and this usually happens (in my context at least) over lunch. I don’t have a staff that I can call into a conference room and work things out over a 3 hour meeting. Typically, I have 50-55 minutes to work with.

And I need to know (though God often intervenes and changes my agenda) what I’m doing.

As I was thinking about this, I approach my one-on-one meetings in four distinct ways. Sometimes they bleed into each other and overlap, but by and large these are the “buckets” I place meetings in.

  • The Directive Meeting.  Sometimes I—or my team—needs something done (or I need someone to stop doing something). These meetings are driven by a sense of strategic need and values. A directive meeting demands that you know—as precisely as possible—what it is you’re going to ask. Moreover, you should be able to communicate that somehow within one to three sentences. It’s also helpful to understand the why behind this directive: what is the value or need that is driving this request?
  • The Counseling or Pastoral Meeting. I’m not the best counsellor in the world, but nevertheless I recognize that this is a non-negotiable part of my job, so I try to do my best. The pastoral meeting is sometimes reactive (in other words, a response to a team member’s request to meet) and sometimes proactive or even confrontational (driven by an awareness or observation of a behavior). I tend to take the approach that people in these situations are hurting, even if they’re not aware of it. Therefore, I try to establish a warm, listening environment, and give plenty of space to talk. There may not be a firm “result” to these meetings, but my overall approach and paradigm is driven by something Brennan Manning wrote. “You are going to leave people feeling a little better or a little worse. You’re going to affirm or deprive them, but there’ll be no neutral exchange.” That may be over-simplifiying things just a bit, but for me that works. That quote establishes the playing ground for me.
  • The Coaching Meeting. The coaching meeting is driven by a firm agenda and a specific approach. “Coaching” refers to a method of helping people achieve specific goals within a specific time period. Unlike the directive meeting, most of the time the individual—not me—establishes the goals that I’ll coach them through. In my context, it can be the desire to pray more, or to write more, or to practice more. Also in contrast to the directive meeting, coaching is built on the idea that the answers and solutions lie within the individual, not the coach. It’s my job to establish a framework and to provide some accountability. Lastly, it’s time-bound, meaning a coaching relationship is meant to only last for a specific amount of time and a specific project (if you want to know more about coaching, you can start exploring it here).
  • The “Being” Meeting. Sometimes the greatest gift you can give your team members is the gift of your presence. Without an agenda. Sometimes you need to put away the lists and set aside the values and simply value them as human beings. Not surprisingly, for many of us these meetings are the most difficult ones to schedule and execute, but they can also reap the heaviest benefit. People (including myself) have a need to know that they are valuable far beyond their gifts and talents, and eating a meal together with no agenda is a great way to cultivate that reality in their spirit.

These are my meeting “buckets”; again, sometimes the edges are fuzzy, and sometimes my agenda and plans get disrupted. But I still make an intentional decision on how I approach my time together with my people. It values their time and efforts, and provides a framework and environment within which God works. Maybe it goes without saying, but the last tool to use when it comes to one-on-one meetings is to know what kind of meeting you are going into. 

If you’re in leadership, do you have one-on-one “buckets” or categories that you use? Feel free to share them here.

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Sabbath Delight

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Though my sabbatical began officially last Sunday, for all intensive purposes it truly begins today, because (a) it’s not impossible that I would have a Sunday off, and (b) Mondays are my normal days off.

But Tuesday is another story. 

Tuesday marks the beginning of my work week; I answer email, then drive in for our weekly staff meeting.

But not tomorrow.

Tomorrow I’ll do… well, whatever it is you do on a sabbatical (truly, I’m still figuring this out).

When my lead pastor offered this to me, I emphatically told him, “But I’m not tired!” To me sabbaticals were for the worn out and weary; I had been in a fairly comfortable rhythm of ministry, and felt like I could keep going for the foreseeable future.

Regardless, Shana and I accepted the gift, and so I started to prepare. I called around to some pastors I knew who had taken sabbaticals. A good friend in northern California told me, “If you’re not tired, then make sure you don’t rest too much.”

Then he added, “Just do more of the stuff you love doing and less of the crap you can’t stand doing.”

Ah, yes.

So that’s been the paradigm I’ve been holding to as I enter this season (at least until school starts in February). I’m reading things that bless my soul, attempting to establish rhythms of grace that will sustain me, and trying my best to “make (and ship) things”. I’m listening to music that I love, and I’m watching movies that make me smile.

It will take some work, but I want to learn how to do this.

This morning, I read this from Dan Allender:

“Delight doesn’t require a journey thousands of miles away to taste the presence of God, but it does require a separation from the mundane, an intentional choice to enter joy and follow God as he celebrates the glory of his creation…”

Although there certainly is a distancing from some of the more mundane items in my weekly “To Do” lists, ultimately, sabbath—whether one day a week or 3 months—is not about what I don’t do but about what we savor. 

It’s about delight.

Ironically, most of us are better at abstaining from things than we are at engaging in delight. It takes work and reflection, after all, to know what it is that brings the deepest joy to us.

But from someone who has a long, sabbath road ahead of him, I’d encourage you to take some time to learn.

peace

*e

 

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Christmas, according to John Chrysostom

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Bethlehem this day resembles heaven; hearing from the stars the singing of angelic voices; and in place of the sun, enfolding within itself on every side, the Sun of Justice. And ask not how: for where God wills, the order of nature yields. For he willed, he had the power, he descended, he redeemed; all things move in obedience to God….

For this he has assumed my body, that I may become capable of his word; taking my flesh, he gives me his spirit; and so bestowing and I receiving, he prepares for me the treasure of life. He takes my flesh to sanctify me; he gives me his Spirit, that he may save me.

Truly wondrous is the whole chronicle of the nativity. For this day the ancient slavery is ended., the devil confounded, the demons take to flight, the power of death is broken. For this day paradise is unlocked, the curse is taken away, sin is removed, error driven out, truth has been brought back, the speech of kindliness diffused and spread on every side—a heavenly way of life has been implanted on the earth, angels communicate with men without fear, and we now hold speech with angels.

Simply beautiful.

Amen.

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As We Come To It …

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I won’t be posting on Christmas Day, and as we all get ready for the last push to get Christmas gatherings prepared, gifts bought, parties prepared for, here’s a note about peace from Brennan Manning…

When we are in right relationship with Jesus, we are in the peace of Christ. Except for grave, conscious, deliberate infidelity, which must be recognized and repented of, the present or absence of feelings of peace is the normal ebb and flow of the spiritual life. When things are plain and ordinary, when we live on the plateaus and in the valleys (which is where most of the Christian life takes place) and not on the mountaintops of peak religious experiences, this is no reason to blame ourselves, to think that our relationship with God is collapsing, or to echo Magdalene’s cry in the garden, ‘Where has beloved gone?’ Frustration, irritation, fatigue and so forth may temporarily unsettle us, but they cannot rob us of living in the peace of Christ Jesus. As the playwright Ionesco once declared in the middle of a depression: ‘Nothing discourages me, not even discouragement’ (from Watch for the Light: Readings for Advent and Christmas).

Peace—real peace—to all of you over these next few beautiful days.

 

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Saltwater

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Last time I checked, salt water looks suspiciously like, well, fresh water. In fact, if you live near the Gulf of Mexico or the Caribbean, there’s a decent chance that the salt water there looks a lot better than most fresh water you’ll see (trust me, I used to live near Lake Michigan).

But there’s just this one thing about salt water.

If you drink it, it will kill you. 

I’m a little fuzzy on all the science, but essentially salt water is four times as salty as the blood in our bodies. As you drink it, the cells inside us are shrinking, and basically we are suffering a “net loss” of hydration with each drink. Keep it up, and you will fry your body’s system, and you’ll be unable to recover.

But, last time I checked, salt water looks suspiciously like, well, fresh water. 

There are things around us, that look like they give us life.

There are things in our environment that appear to help us, but are actually causing a net loss inside us.

There are activities that we think are making things better—that even appear necessary to our existence.

But they are taking a toll.

We are in the season of Advent, which is designed to be a season of reflection and anticipation. Instead, for most of us it’s a season of frenetic activity, consumption, and distraction.

And for most of us, our solution to this “problem” is to run faster, consumer more, and “multi-task” more and more.

But is that actually our saltwater?

Sometimes, the very thing that appears to help us is the thing that is actually beginning to choke away our life. It’s saltwater.

It’s a few more days until Christmas; chances are, your schedule is not going to get any slower over the week.

But do you need to run faster? Check email more often?

Or is that an illusion?

Is it actually producing a “net loss” in your life?

Is it saltwater?

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Just a Prayer

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Full disclosure: I saw this prayer from Walter Brueggemann posted on Ryan’s blog. I have no other words.

Another brutality,

another school killing,

another grief beyond telling…

            and loss…

                        in Colorado,

                        in Wisconsin,

                        among the Amish

                        in Virginia

                        Where next?

 

We are reduced to weeping silence,

            even as we breed a violent culture,

            even as we kill the sons and daughters of

                        our “enemies,”

            even as we fail to live and cherish and respect

                        the forgotten of our common life.

 

There is no joy among us as we empty our schoolhouses;

there is no health among us as we move in fear and

            bottomless anxiety;

there is little hope among us as we fall helpless before

            the gunshot and the shriek and the blood and the panic;

we pray to you only because we do not know what else to do.

            So we pray, move powerfully in our body politic,

                        move us toward peaceableness

                                    that does not hurt or want to kill.

                        move us toward justice

                                    that the troubled and the forgotten may know mercy,

                        move us toward forgiveness that

                                    we may escape the trap of revenge.

 

Empower us to turn our weapons to acts of mercy,

            to turn our missiles to gestures of friendship,

            to turn our bombs to policies of reconciliation;

and while we are turning,

            hear our sadness,

            our loss,

            our bitterness.

 

We dare to pray our needfulness to you

            because you have been there on that

                        gray Friday,

                        and watched your own Son be murdered

                                    for “reasons of state.”

 

Good God, do Easter!

            Here and among these families,

            here and in all our places of brutality.

 

Move our Easter grief now…

            without too much innocence—

            to your Sunday joy.

We pray in the one crucified and risen

            who is our Lord and Savior.

 p.s:

“‘Come, Lord Jesus!’

May the grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s holy people.” – Revelation 22v20-21

What Beck Can Teach Us About the Bible and the Mission of God

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Beck’s latest record, Song Reader, is a phenomenal example of innovation and new thinking in music-making in the 21st century.

You see, Beck released Song Reader not as a CD, or a download, or even vinyl, but as sheet music.

That’s so Gutenberg!

Let me be clear: Beck released Song Reader with the intention that the actual performance of the songs would be carried out by people who bought the music. They would determine the character of the songs, based on his suggestions and music (folks could then submit their performances).

It’s a lesson about so much: not only about how we used to consume music (sheet music used to be enormously popular in the early 20th century) but about what art actually is and where it “resides.”

But I’d like to suggest that Beck’s idea can teach us something compelling about the Bible.

N.T. Wright uses this great analogy about how the Bible for us is sort of like a script to a great play without a written ending. We’re stuck, right now, in the gap between what’s written and the ultimate fulfillment of our story (in Revelation 21).

And, as Wright puts it, it’s up to us to improvise. 

Now, we don’t improvise in a way that is inconsistent with what’s written before; but we also don’t simply repeat the earlier acts. We symbolically “write” our own stories into the play, knowing that eventually the whole thing is going to be resolved by Jesus.

In this same way, Song Reader reminds us that we have the opportunity to take the “song” that’s been given to us—the command to love God and love others—and perform it in new and compelling ways.

Our song may not sound like everyone else’s; it’s really not supposed to.

It’s supposed to be our “performance” of what’s been given to us.

Are you singing? Are you playing?

When Good News is Really Good Pt 2 :: “Creation is One Great Magic Trick”

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When I was young, I was taught that Jesus’ miracles offered proof of his divinity: after all, who else but the son of God could turn water into wine, heal people, or feed thousands (much less bring someone back to life)?

This is absolutely true; God was working supernaturally through Jesus and his ministry, restoring the people of God and inviting others into the family.

But is there something else going on in the miracles stories as well?

In contrast to the other three gospel writers, John has a very interesting and specific agenda, and he hints at it in the opening lines of his gospel:

“In the beginning the Word already existed.

The Word was with God,

and the Word was God…”

John’s opening words are not mere prose—compare them with way Luke begins: “Many people have set out to write accounts about the vents that have been fulfilled among us.”

John is up to something else here. His opening is less like an account and more like a poem. It’s almost like a song.

And we have seen this before.

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

“In the beginning…”

John opens his gospel with a poem. What’s more, he uses the same opening phrase. It’s as if John is intentionally pointing us back to Genesis 1, saying, “this is the filter you need to read this gospel through.” Not only that, but I’d also like to suggest that John pushes this Genesis connection strongly through his gospel.

Especially through Jesus’ miracle stories.

Jesus works a few significant miracles in John’s gospel, and John directs our attention to them in a very unique way. For example, after Jesus has “got the party started” at the wedding feast in Cana, John writes this, “This miraculous sign at Cana in Galilee was the first time Jesus revealed his glory.” (2v11)

John uses phrase miraculous sign in a very distinct way. It’s associated with Jesus doing some kind of miracle and associated with a revelation of his glory.

But John is telling another story as well.

Because if you read the whole of John gospel, you’d find that he uses that phrase five more times between chapter 4 and chapter 12.

  1. After Jesus heals the Roman Centurion’s servant (4v54)
  2. After Jesus heals the man by the pool in Bethesda (5v9; technically John doesn’t use the word “sign” here but scholars identify this as one of the significant healings in this gospel)
  3. After the feeding of the 5,000 (6v14)
  4. After Jesus heals the man born blind (9v16)
  5. After Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead (11v47)

For a total of six… 

OH, and the sixth one involves giving life to a human being. 

Hmmmmm….Where else has there been six of something, with something involving humanity on the sixth? 

Then God said, ‘Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. They will reigh over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.’

“So God creed human beings in his own image.

In the image of God he created them;

male and female he created them…

Then God looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was very good!

And evening passed and morning came, marking the sixth day.
(Gen 1v26-27, 31)

John is telling another story here, one that has to do with creation—new creation, in fact.

In other words, Jesus’ miracles aren’t just cool magic tricks. Something radical and cosmic is happening in Jesus and through Jesus, and John wants us to know it. Through Jesus and his ministry, a newness and a freshness is beginning (“God saw that it was very good!”). Through Jesus, a new reality is breaking into this present reality; a foretaste of what God eventually wants to do everywhere, for everyone.

To restore creation, ultimately and completely.

But John’s not done yet; there were only six miracles, but Genesis accounts for seven days.

“So the creation of the heavens and the earth and everything in them was completed. On the seventh day God had finished his work of creation, so he rested from all his work.” (Gen 2v1-2)

When is John’s “seventh day”?

Before we get there, the sixth day isn’t over yet. John has an interesting account of Jesus’ interaction with Pilate, hinting at where all of this is going. John tells us that Pilate had Jesus beaten, whipped, and mocked. If you’ve read accounts of this, or seen The Passion of the Christ, you know that this was not pretty. 

Jesus is bloody; broken.

And in the midst of this scene, John relates a curious phrase by Pilate: “And Pilate said, ‘Look here is the man.” 

Man.

Adam.

Genesis 1 (and 2) again.

John is trying to get us to see that Jesus is the “new Adam”, but also that this newness comes with a cost. In order to fulfill Adam’s “commission”, suffering has to happen.

Blood has to be spilt.

And we’re still not done.

When does the “seventh day” come in John? When does Sabbath—which means wholeness, peace, healing, completion—occur?

Jesus knew that his mission was now finished, and to fulfill Scripture he said, “I am thirsty.’ A jar of sour wine was sitting there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put it on a hyssop branch, and held it up to his lips. When Jesus had tasted, he said, ‘It is finished!’ Then he bowed his head and released his spirit (John 19v28-30).

“It is finished.”

Genesis 1.

The six “signs” culminate in this one. 

Only at the cross is Jesus truly done.

John’s “seventh day” comes on the cross, with Jesus’ death. Only when Jesus has done what only he could do—to be obedient all the way to death, to defeat evil by letting evil do its worst to him—could he say, along with God in Genesis 1, that this work of New Creation is truly “finished.”

Sabbath is coming: healing, completeness, rest.

Death will shortly be defeated, and the era of the resurrection will begin.

When good news is really good, miracles aren’t just clever magic tricks: they are signs that something cosmic is breaking out all around us. When good news is really good, we realize that God wants to heal the whole world, and every one in it. 

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When Good News Is Really Good Pt 1 (or “It’s Okay With God if You Don’t Join the Choir”)

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Mark’s Gospel

I confess: I’m passionate about the Bible. Maybe it’s too reflective of my status as a (decidedly not young) grad student, but I am determined to see it taught well, and “used” accurately.

I was talking to a friend the other day, and we were talking about how there can be a difference between the historical meaning and significance of Scripture and the individual/devotional meaning and significance.

I land decidedly on the historical/contextual side: Jesus meant what he said, not what we in the 21st century wish he would have said.

I’d like to suggest this: the overwhelming agenda of the four gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) is to prove that God’s story was coming to an epic resolution and fulfillment in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Everything that we read in the gospels flows into and out of that. Unfortunately, we have a tendency to separate Jesus sayings (and actions) from this agenda. 

For the next few weeks, I’d like to spend some time pushing back on some (what I believe) are misreadings of the gospels, and try to recover some of the (sometimes even more explosive) things that Jesus actually may have been saying.

Let’s start with a story out of Matthew. Jesus says the Kingdom of Heaven can be illustrated by the story of a man (generally understood to be God) who goes on a long journey. He entrusts  different sums of money to his servants, and when he returns he asks what they did with the amounts. Two of the three double his money, while one buries it.

The two that gained money get praise from the master, but the one who buried it (safely) gets some harsh words: “‘You wicked and lazy servant… To those who use well what they are given, even more will be given, and they will have abundance. But from those who do nothing, even what little they have will be taken away. Now throw this useless servant into outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’”

Just in case you were wondering, historically, the “outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” is just as bad as it sounds.

… and cue awkward silence.

Is God really that way?

Divorced form the agenda of the gospels, this can be (and has been) taught as a story about stewardship and giftedness.

Again, is God really that way? 

If you don’t play in the church band, are you going to be thrown into outer darkness?

If you don’t risk investment (in people or things or whatever), is what you have going to be taken from you?

Gnash teeth much?

Ugh.

But once you understand the agenda of Jesus—and the gospel writers—things begin to fall into place a bit more…

  • if the sums of money represent God’s mission and message in the world…
  • if the servants—including Israel—are people with whom God has entrusted His mission…
  • if (by extension) the “wicked and lazy servant” is the religious establishment in Israel…

… then we begin to see what Jesus (and Matthew) might be saying here:

  • God has entrusted his mission to people, specifically Israel
  • Israel believes that God has left on a long journey—His presence has not returned to the Temple
  • God has come back to find (a) that unexpected people have valued His mission/message, and (b) Israel (or rather their leaders) have buried His message
  • God is taking His message away from Israel and entrusting it—through Jesus and his ministry—to others (the Gentiles; that’s us)

Is God still stern? Yes, because His mission is at stake. When you read the parable this way, this is why Jesus uses such strong language.

Good news is really good: God isn’t concerned so much with how much risk you take in life, or whether or not you serve in the nursery (though you should!); He’s concerned with how faithful His church is to His message and agenda in the world.

-e

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